June 23rd through 29th update...

~June 26, 2009

Well, it’s Friday already can you believe it?  The days have been busy for us, but that’s going to slow down this next month since Jacob mostly has weekends off and my friend Cindy doesn’t do weekends since her husband is in training all week and they only get to see each other on weekends, so…  I’m trying to decide whether I want to still try and get out and take the kids too, or just not go out hardly at all next month.  It’s not like I really need to buy anything, just that I would like to get out and do some window-shopping and check out some more baby stuff.  I do need a pack ‘n play that will fit I in with our family room décor, preferably something in a dark brown and green!!!

So this last Tuesday I did go to the movies with my friend Cindy.  Jacob was already at the movies when I got there at about 10 till 4.  We switched vehicles and he took the kids home.  It was a good thing that I arrived so early cause I was the first one in line for the movie and got the best seats in the house.  Shortly after I sat down some people tried to sit right next to me, but I told them that I was expecting someone and they moved over.  The movie was good though, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”.  I’d already seen it, but Cindy hadn’t and she wanted to go.  I was happy to go with her and see it again!  Wolverine is my favorite superhero type character!  I think he fits my personality best and I love the regeneration ability that he has!  One of my role-playing characters has that ability too!  It’s so handy!!!  Afterwards we went to the Dollar Store and I picked up some cleaning supplies that I can get there pretty cheap, then I went home.

Thursday we all got up early and got ready to go to the Zoo.  Cindy arrived at about 8:15, earlier than I was expecting her, but that was nice!  Jacob had left for a political meeting of a group he just recently joined (I wasn’t sure when to expect him back, but he was home shortly after Cindy arrived).  We left a little before 9 a.m.  I had thought that going earlier in the morning would be better for the Zoo, but the longer we were there the hotter it got and there wasn’t enough of a breeze to compensate for the scorching sun!  Unfortunately for me, for some reason, I seem to blow up like a balloon when I’m out in the heat for more than ten minutes.  I have to stay pretty chilled to maintain my normal body chemistry and not blow up.  I’m going to talk to my OB about that at my next visit on Tuesday!  We didn’t make it around the whole Zoo like I was hoping, but we did go about 2.77 miles.  I guess we’ll have to wait for a day that’s much cooler to go or we just won’t be able to go at all cause I just can’t seem to stand the heat very well…  We headed to lunch after the Zoo.  Went to Carl’s Jr and I got my favorite meal there, the Chicken Bacon and Swiss sandwich with fries and a chocolate shake.  I didn’t eat anything for dinner cause that meal lasts you all day!  We came back home and watched “Kung Fu Panda”.  Cindy had never seen it and I think she really liked it!  It’s really funny!!!  :O)  Cindy went home after the movie and I headed out to do a little necessity shopping by myself.  I still need to go and get some groceries though, I’ll probably do that Monday.

Today a couple of my friends came over for our first role-playing session.  Jacob had a really long campaign drawn up, but we only made it through half of it because the girls spent about an hour and a half getting their characters put together the rest of the way.  We’ll pick up where we left off next Tuesday.  We might have to get together more than once a week at this rate in order to really get anywhere.  Everyone left a little after 4.   Jacob and I also worked on the downstairs room trying to get it ready for Uncle James arrival today.  It’s 10:30 p.m. and I’m not sure where he is?!  Jacob had to go to bed at 8 to be up at 4:30 to get ready for work tomorrow and I put the kids to bed at 9.  He also found out this evening that until further notice he’ll be working 12 hour shifts so he won’t be home till after 6:30 p.m. each evening.  That makes dinner plans a little up in the air since I like to try and eat earlier, heartburn is starting to become an issue again if I eat too late!  So I might just have to make dinner earlier and save some for him when he gets home!

This weekend I currently have no plans other than teaching the 10:45 a.m. 2’s/3’s Sunday School Class at Church.  The kids and I will probably attend the 9 am service as well, but I haven’t decided yet.  Uncle James mentioned something about going to Church with us on Sunday.  I’m not sure how that will work with me needing to teach that class for second service?!  I guess I’ll have to write more Monday after the weekend so I can let you know what went on.  Until then…  Love you and good night!

~Saturday June 27^th, 2009

Waited for Uncle James (my Mom’s brother who is staying with us for the weekend) till midnight last night then made up a bed for myself in the front room on the couch.  Tossed and turned till just before 4:30 and woke wide-awake.  Went back to my own bed cause my body was aching so much and baby girl didn’t like my sleeping on the couch either, she was up most of the night kicking me like crazy!  Finally was able to get back to sleep around 5:30 and then woke around 7 when the kids were freaking out in the boys room.  I had to get up and referee.  Am so tired and sore this morning, baby girl has finally settled down.  Hopefully the day will go better!

Now the kids are breakfasted and I’m trying to get them to get their clothes on for the day.  Was thinking about going to the Farmer’s Market at Southlands this morning and maybe going grocery shopping, our fridge is pretty bare.  I haven’t decided yet…

2:41 p.m. ~Uncle James called and apparently my Grandfather told him to stay in Vail last night, too bad nobody told me I could have slept in my own bed and not gotten only about 2 hours of sleep!  He plans to leave there around 3 or 3:30, which will probably put him here around 5:30 or 6.  He’s gonna get directions to the Christian Store then leave with one possibly two people he volunteered to take to the Airport.  I’m not sure what time the lady/ies need to be dropped off at the Air Port this evening.

I called Jacob at work and asked if he wanted to have lunch with us.  We went and picked him up and split a meal at Carl’s Jr.  The kids had Burger King Kid’s Meals.  After lunch the kids and I went and got groceries.  I wasn’t able to get everything at the Commissary so I’ll have to go to Walmart or King Sooper’s in the next few days to get the rest.

When we got back home the kids helped me unload the groceries and then they got one of the treats they picked out from freezer section.  Now they’re playing Legos and I’m watching “Fiddler on the Roof” while updating my letters and checking Facebook.

~Sunday June 28^th, 2009

Well last night I didn’t get to bed till after 10 p.m.  Uncle James didn’t get back from his errand till after 9 and I stayed up and we chatted till a little after 10.  This morning I woke at 6 because the kids were already up and making bunches of noise!  It was so loud I couldn’t sleep any longer.  They will no longer be going to bed at 8 pm, getting up at 6 am in the summer is just way too early for me especially when I hadn’t gotten very much or very good sleep in the last two nights!  We don’t have anything other than Church on Sundays that really requires us to be up before 8 most days (I will have OB appointments later on this months and next that might require an early wake up, but that’s just every other week and then once a week near the end, I like early morning appointments!).

My back is killing me today!  I’m not exactly sure what happened when I slept on the couch the other night, but it really did a number on my back.  I’m gonna see if Jacob can give me a good massage tonight before bed and maybe loosen things up a bit for me!

This morning Uncle James and the kids and I went to Church.  James and I attended the first Service then during Second Service he attended a class upstairs.  Second Service I taught the 2’s/3’s class and met who I guess will be my adult summer helper Laura (I think that’s her name).  We only had 7 kids that ended up staying in class with us.  Two of the kids were too antsy and a distraction for the other kids so I had them moved down to the Toddler room where there was no structure.  They pretty much just wanted to play the whole time anyway, so it worked out and the Toddler room only had one kid!  David went down the 4’s class.  The last time I had him in my class he really distracted the other kids because he got really bored, he did really well in the 4’s though.  Anna stays with me during the 2^nd Service and helps out.  I think though that during the summer if Jacob is off during a Sunday I’ll have him take the boys home with him and just stay with Anna.  It’s too long for John to stay in a classroom setting and he starts getting really cranky because he needs a nap.  If Jacob takes them home then they can get the nap that he really needs!

Next Sunday there is only one service at 9 o’clock so I’m pretty sure that I won’t need to be there at 10:45 for that class.  One of the Children’s Coordinators will call me later this week to confirm and then I don’t think we’ll be attending Church because there are no Sunday school classes for Anna or David that day.  I’m not sure what we’ll do, but I think Jacob is off…I’ll have to let you know…

After Church we went and picked up Jacob and we all went out to eat at Q’doba, one of Jacob and Anna’s favorite restaurants.  Then we took Jacob back to work and came home.  The kids have been watching movies and playing Legos since we got back and I had a long talk with Uncle James who is now taking a nap.  Jacob gets off work in about 44 min and hopefully he’ll actually get off work on time tonight!

Jacob got home around 6:30 and we all pretty much just sat around and watched a couple shows before he had to go to bed at 8.  This new work schedule really sucks cause he only has an hour an a half with the family in the evenings when he gets home before he has to go to bed to get up at 4:30 in the morning for the next day!  :O(   Fortunately today is his last day for two days, he has Tuesday and Wednesday off, then works Thursday and Friday, then has Saturday and Sunday off.

I didn’t get to bed till after 10 again.  I put the kids to bed around 9:30 because John was falling asleep.  The other two just put themselves to bed too so I just went with it.  I stayed up and watched a show really quick though so that’s why I didn’t go to bed with them.

~June 29th, 2009

Well, this morning I actually got to sleep in till about 7:30.  The kids had gotten up shortly before and were making bunches of noise again.  I got them breakfast and then myself something to eat.  

Uncle James left around 8:30 this morning to go down the Springs and check out a couple places he'd come to see...he's actually on his way back right now.  I think he'll be staying the night again tonight.

I decided that I wanted to go to the Unique Thrift Store and check things out there, wasn't sure if it would just be 25% off or 50, it was just 25%.  I found another bumper for the crib and a crib sheet in cream colors.  Found a couple of other cool things too!  Went home after and make lunch, Teriyaki Chicken w/ veggies and rice which the kids and I took to the Base and ate with Jacob.  After we dropped him back off, the kids and I went over to Kid to Kid and I found some changing pad covers and got the pack 'n play that I'm looking for put on a Wish List there.  I'll keep looking myself, but at least I won't have to look there really often cause they'll be looking for me.  From Kid to Kid we went to Walmart and picked up a few things, unfortunately the smaller Walmart didn't carry everything on my list so we'll have to go somewhere else.  I did pick up about a dozen mouse traps though, we have a bit of a mouse problem, or at least we have had, they might be dying off, literally, due to all the traps we've already set.

Back home now I set John and David down to eat more of their lunch.  John was actually sleeping while the rest of us ate, so he only got a granola bar when we were at Walmart. Neither one of them really wanted to eat though.  They are more interested in playing right now.  All the kids are downstairs playing and watching a movie I think.

Jacob won't be home until around 6:30 this evening.  We ate a large lunch so we won't be having a large dinner.  Probably just cereal or something.  Actually cereal is becoming a regular dinner item for us since I'm starting to struggle with heartburn again.  My weekly pregnancy updates say that the 3rd trimester can bring on more heartburn due to my ever enlarging uterus which is cramping things, so I'm probably gonna have to go back to eating very early dinners to that I don't pay for it in the evening.  Waking up with severe heartburn in the middle of the night is no fun!

No other plans for the rest of the day.  There's lots going on tomorrow...tune in later for another update.  I might add a bit more to this post later after the evening passes, just to let you know!  :O)

Renaissance Festival ~ June 21st, 2009

       

Colorado Renaissance Festival ~ Larkspur, CO ~ June 21st, 2009

(Pictures above: The King and Court, The Good Guys & The Bad Guys) 

Sunday morning the whole family was up a little earlier than we were wanting to get up in order to get ready for our trip the the Colorado Renaissance Festival.  I had prepared the clothes in advance the night before and everything was ready accept for the food.  I made about 8 sandwiches of varying flavors and peanut buttered celery sticks, packed apples, cookies, and jerky we'd bought the day before into a cooler along with 8 bottles of water that were either frozen or refrigerated the night before.  Sunscreen, bug spray, wipies, blankets, and an umbrella went into the van too!  After everyone ate a quick breakfast of muffins and milk we loaded up and headed out just after 9 o'clock.

The trip down to Larkspur, CO always seems to take longer than we expect, but we arrived and were parked in a space pretty close to the front gates by 9:45 am.  Jacob immediately went and purchased our tickets (only one actually since this was Military weekend and 'Buy One Get One Free" tickets w/ kids Free as well).  Meanwhile I lotioned up the kids and bug sprayed them. Then when Jacob got back we took care of ourselves and loaded up the stroller.  Michelle and her boys were coming down the road as we were loading up, she just happened to be parked just down the row from us.  (Michelle is one of our friends from Colorado Springs that Jacob went to the AF Academy with.)  We'd planned to meet and spend the day together.  So after we got the stroller loaded we headed out.  Michelle stopped to get tickets and as I pushed the stroller up the hill I realized just how difficult it was going to be to push the darn thing the whole day.  So Jacob took the stroller back and we only kept one small bag with necessities and water bottles.  (We decided that we'd just go back and get the stuff when we wanted to eat instead of lugging the thing with us the whole time.)

Our first stop was the Sky Chairs.  Everyone, except me, decided to try them out!

This is Anna with Twig the Fairy!

We started out going the opposite way than we normally go and stopped by Legacy Forge, a shop that we usually stop and admire the weapons in (at least have for the past 5 years or so).  Anyway, we handled just about every blade they had and I found a bastard sword that I really liked.  Jacob wasn't really interested in anything until he picked up this one blade and as you can see below, after 3 years of really wanting an actual practice sword, we went ahead and bought one for each of us.

Jenny's Left/Jacob's Right

Above are pictures of the family lounging after lunch at the Jousting Arena.  The 3rd picture is of David Lacock and David Nunez (our friend Michelle's son).  Picture 4 is of all my boys napping on or near me while we wait for the 2:30 show.

After the show we decided to let the kids run the Maze that they'd been asking about the whole time.  Below are Anna and John who have made it through the Maze to the Dragon Slide.

John really wanted to ride the Giant Rocking Horse...below they are standing in line waiting their turn and the second picture is of them actually on the horse.  John really liked it!  :O)

We pretty much toured the rest of the Festival checking out shops and decided to head home when everyone started to get really cranky and hot!  We left just before 5pm.  The kids fell asleep on the way home and Jacob would have too if I hadn't put some music on for him.  We were all very exhausted after and went to bed early and slept late the next day.  All except for Jacob who had to work at 6am.  Anyway, it was a good visit!

Garage Sale & Baby Stuff Shopping

*~*Last night when I was writing my friend Cindy about getting together today I remembered that our Church Youth Group was having a Garage Sale Friday (today) and Saturday this week. I wasn't sure what time so I checked Jacob and my joint account and there was an e-mail saying the garage sale was from 7-3 each day. So being the total Garage Sale fanatic that I am I slept pretty good last night till the last couple early hours when my internal alarm clock kept waking me up to be ready to head over the the Sale. I wanted to check it out before the kids and possibly even Jacob were up, however Jacob was up a few minutes after me and ended up staying up. I was up at 6 am.

I arrived at the Church at about 6:50 and was a bit surprised that there wasn't anything outside at all. "Wasn't the sale suppose to start at 7 this morning" I thought. I took my bag of donations into the Church a bit confused, but was then overwhelmed with the massive amount of stuff that was down the hall and piled on a dozen plus different tables in the Youth room. Lori, one of the ladies helping with the sale was pricing things at the Nursery Desk and asked if I had stuff to donate. I told her yes and that it was all already priced, then I volunteered to help her with pricing all the stuff she was working on. I had brought my box of stickers and started in on helping her out right after I made a quick once over of the sale items.

I found all sorts of cool stuff! I got a Little Tikes book shelf for baby girl and a cute little Hugga Bunch onsie still in it's original package from 1985, an antique replica Crosely Radio that I need to fix (that I can hopefully fix, it needs a new knob for the tuner, doesn't quite work right), a huge bag of all sort of marbles for David and a Fisher Price Airport set for John. I got a really neat 14" Madame Alexander doll that is dressed in autumn colors (it's the Poor Cinderella edition). I got a really neat cast iron bird bath and bird house (small size, merely decorative). I got several other cool things too, but I don't want to list everything...

When I was done helping price and going around checking out the sale I helped make sure other things in the sale were priced. I even made a few signs to put up so people would check out all the furniture in the hall of the Church. I stuck around till about 9:40 then I had to leave. I said I would probably be back tomorrow to help out some more. They are supposed to get a couple more boxes of stuff and I'm hoping to get there to help price it all! I had a lot of fun, doing all that garage sale stuff is totally exciting one of my strong points (all that organizing and such)! It was definitely the highlight of my week!!!

So John is enjoying his Airport set. He's been playing with it since I took everything out and before I was able to clean it all up! (It is sanitized now!)

From the sale I went to Burlington Coat Factory where I was meeting my friend Cindy. She hadn't quite arrived yet, so I decided to go next door to Savers (thrift store) and see if they had any maternity clothes (I found a pair of pants.) After I checked out I rushed over to Burlington and realized that Cindy was already there, so I threw my purchase in the van and made my way quickly to the back of the store where the baby stuff is. She was on her way to the front to try and get ahold of me. We were in there a little over an hour checking stuff out. Baby gear, bedding, clothes, etc. We found a really pretty crib set on clearance and I got an extra 10% off of it with a coupon I had. I also got a couple outfits for baby girl too!

From Burlington we went to JoAnn's to try and find fabric to make a quilt for the crib and ribbon/lace to decorate some lampshades I purchased. They didn't have any ribbon/or lace that I liked, but we did find fabric to put together to make a quilt, however I didn't purchase any of it because the fabric alone (1 yd per design and underside fabric) would have been at least $40 and that wasn't even for the batting to go on the inside or the trim for around the edge. Nothing was on sale! So we left.

Cindy left from their to BJ's to get us a table for lunch. I drove home real quick to pick up Jacob and the kids to go to lunch with us. (Jacob told me if we went to BJ's that he wanted to come too!) Anyway, we arrived a little after 12:30 at BJ's and ordered a bunch of different things than we normally order. I got a turkey cobb sandwich and Jacob got the BJ's burger (it's so yummy, I've had it before!), the boys got chicken strips, fries and a salad, and Anna got a mini cheese pizza. Cindy got the same as me, just with different dressing (she already knew what she wanted, I ended up coping her, sounded good), ours came with salads and fries too! Quite a lot of $5.95! :O)

Cindy went home after lunch to take care of her dogs and Jacob and the kids and I went to Hobby Lobby to see if they had any ribbon/lace to work for the lamps. I found what I was looking for! It's going to be so beautiful! I'll take pictures when I get them completed. I just need to purchase some antique white paint to paint the lamp bases now and I'll have all my materials for that project.

From Hobby Lobby we came home and Jacob took Anna and David to the pool. They weren't able to stay long because another storm moved in. It's suppose to be stormy through Sunday, maybe even longer, they keep extending the forecast! I guess we'll see what next week holds. Not sure what we are going to do the rest of the day, probably watch a couple "Trigun" episodes and get the kids to clean up their messes around the house from their new treasures! I need to do a bit of cleaning up and organizing of the stuff that I got today. Nothing too major!

Married 10 Years!

~Well Jacob and I have been married for 10 years as of yesterday! Our Anniversary is June 5th! I can hardly believe it, it just went so fast. I am looking forward to spending at least another 60 with him, I couldn't imagine living my life without out him! He's my best friend and makes all our lives more enjoyable! He's an amazing, wonderful, caring, thoughtful man, I love him more than words can even express!!!

Here is what we did yesterday:

At 7:30 in the morning we had an appointment for a guy to come over and give us an estimate on getting our house painted. We really need to do that before winter because we have some decaying would and need to get it all sealed up so it doesn't get worse. He arrived at 7:10 and our estimate for probably 3 days of work would be $2600 for their portion. He says that there are some decorative pieces that he'd have to call someone else in to do, so I'm not sure how much that would cost yet? Meanwhile I cut up some apples and whisked the batter for waffles. I thought that would be a good breakfast since we haven't had it for awhile and Jacob loves waffles. I don't like 'em unless we do the apple cinnamon topping (it's pretty much like eating a big 'l slice of apple pie). The kids had waffles plain cause they didn't want to wait for the apple topping, they don't really like it anyway. Anna had to be taken to school. She's still in until next Tuesday at 10:30 am.

The apple topping wasn't made along with the waffles right away because I made a few calls to my insurance company and OB to try and get my last and latest ultrasound worked out so that we won't be paying $400 ea. Apparently my insurance only covers one routine ultrasound and currently my first ultrasound on the 22nd of January to make sure baby was okay (due to still experiencing the same symptoms as last year when I had the miscarriage) was categorized as routine and so was my 20 wk ultrasound on the 21st of April. So they only covered the first one and not the second and said that I owed my OB $400 bucks! Yikes! I think I got it all straightened up though, the lady in billing said she'd take care of it when she got the denial from my insurance company.

A little after 9 Jacob, David, John, and I went garage saleing for a little over 2 hrs. Two communities next to us are having their annual sales and I wanted to check them out! Found some cool stuff, actually at the first one Jacob was interested in several things and ended up buying a bookcase complete with a whole set of encyclopedias and a gigantic dictionary for $10. David got a bag of marbles for 50¢, and I got a couple bags and purses for $1.75. We stopped at lots and lots of sales. Didn't really buy a whole lot until near the very end when we found a sale with a water fountain for $5, got some pots for tomatoes...4 for $1, and one of those portable shopping carts that usually sells for $50+ in any home store for $5 (I'm going to use it at community garage sales so that I don't have to carry everything when parking is scarce.). The boys got a couple brand new matchbox cars at another sale, I got Anna some cute little dressy white sandals. We got a few other things here and there, just small items. I think we might go back out again today for a little bit since I don't think everyone was set up yesterday and Anna didn't get to go.

We stopped by McDonald's on our way home and picked up some cheeseburgers and fries for a light lunch. When we got home I washed the van (by hand). Most of it twice because after I sprayed it off and it dried it still looked dirty. Still did even after the 2nd scrub down. Jacob said he thinks it's because of our hard water. We'll have to take care of that one of these days!

Jacob set up the new fountain outside the back door. It sounds really nice! We hope to some day be able to put a huge water feature outside to help drown out traffic noise behind the wall. We have a main street running along our back wall and it can be very noisy sometimes!

After the set up of the fountain Jacob decided to play with his remote control car out front and ended up chasing the boys with it. He even let David drive a bit. He doesn't have very good control though and Jacob had to chase the car down several times and rescue it from different neighbors yards! lol

While the boys were playing I decided to clean up a few more dead branches from our huge blue spruce out from and chatted with my sister on the phone at the same time. Then I took a break and surfed the net and Jacob played Oblivion while the boys watch!

At 2:30 we picked up Anna and went to Bath and Body Works to pick up my Anniversary gift! Jacob got me this new perfume that I discovered that I like there called "Butterfly Flower". It smells so good!!! We took 'em up on there current promotional offer of buy 3 items get 3 free, I got 1 perfume and 5 body splashes (the body splash smells pretty much the same as the perfume at a fraction of the cost). While we were there John had an accident. The kids were smelling all the different fragrances and John accidentally sprayed himself in the eyes with one of the perfumes. Jacob rushed him over to the sink and rinsed his eyes for awhile and we put cold compresses on his eyes to try and cut down on the pain, but his poor little eyes were all swollen and red and so was his nose.

After B&BW we went to an early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Tried some new dishes and got some different cheesecake slices to take home and try. From there we wen to The Great Indoors and walked around for awhile. We usually like to do that after we've eaten a big dinner.

On the way home we stopped by Lamborghini of Denver and checked out the Lotus vehicles in their lot. A Lotus has been my dream sports type car for awhile. They are a lot smaller than I imagined! I originally saw one in one of Jacob's driving games. We kept the kids away from the vehicles (they only had 3) and Jacob went inside and checked out the Lamborghini's inside the dealership, didn't want to risk taking the kids in there!

Then we went home and watched 4 episodes of one of Jacob's Anniversary gifts, the TRIGUN anime series. We watched them till about 8pm. After the shows I decided I wanted to work on the Nursery some. I have been planning to hang a canopy over the crib so I had to fix it (did that), took it upstairs and had Jacob hold it up to see if I like it. I wasn't sure so we didn't hang it. Decided that since I can't decide on the canopy I'd take all the baby clothes downstairs and get them washed (started a large load of 0/3 & 3/6 mo. clothes). Was going to go through another bin of baby stuff and just ended up pulling out the other things that I have that match the bumper I already have. I might just use it instead of changing everything else, just need to get a crib sheet that matches.

Put the kids to bed about 9:30 and Jacob and I headed to bed soon after. It was a very busy day! :O)